


Show Me Yours, Show You Mine

by nimblermortal



Category: Laxdæla saga | Laxdaela Saga, Norse Religion & Lore, Íslendingasögur | Sagas of Icelanders
Genre: Best Friends, Jewelry, Multi, Pre-Canon, Weapons, definitely not Bolli-bashing, inasmuch as something in the middle of a saga can be pre-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 10:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3646599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimblermortal/pseuds/nimblermortal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kjartan and Gudrun get into a competition to see who is better outfitted; Bolli, as always, is second best, and Gudrun, as always, has more motives than Kjartan will ever think to look for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show Me Yours, Show You Mine

_“I had four dreams last night,” said Gudrun to her cousin Aud. “The same four.”_

_“The ones you talked with Gest about?” asked Aud. Gudrun nodded. Four dreams, four pieces of jewelry four husbands, each lost; Gudrun spent much of her free time worrying about who to marry._

_“The first two do not matter,” she said. “They will die or disappear, and there is little I can do about it. It’s the third, the one who will die in battle, that I worry about.”_

_“So pick someone strong enough not to die in battle,” said Aud._

_“I intend to,” said Gudrun._

_In the spring, Aud died of sickness; but they had always known she was frail._

The land stretched out before them like velvet, dry and stubbly, the broad openness of it making the string of horses seem smaller than they were even before the occasional necessary dip into one of the gullies that crossed the plains like the strands of Loki’s net. The horses seemed to grow smaller still as they edged away from the hills that rose sharp and low over the plains, not carved out by water over centuries but laid down by fire, young enough that some distant ancestor might have seen it happen, but jealously defended as being as old as Ymir.

The travelers entertained each other at first by making kennings for that low steppe, since there was no skald about to protest their ineligibility. The best of them was a vague reference to Thor’s whetstone, but even that speaker’s voice died out in his self-conscious examination of his own skill.

“Stolen by the wind?” a different speaker suggested, and was hissed to silence.

“If it were me,” Gudrun said, her voice clear and queenly in the silence, “I would craft a headdress of it.” She held her head tilted just so, so that when the boys ahead of her looked back, her hair was crowned with mountains.

“It would be an unattractive black thing,” Kjartan said, cautious of his own distaste.

“It is the prestige that matters,” said Gudrun. “If I were to wear Laxardal like a crown about my brow, no one would dare to tell me how it looked. For style, I own finer headdresses already.”

“Oh?” asked Kjartan. “I see none.”

“I’d hardly wear one here for every goat to gawk at and for the wind to ruin,” Gudrun said tartly, but she relented at Kjartan’s look. “I’ll show you next time we stop.”

“Is that all?” asked Kjartan, and he spurred his horse forward to ride alongside his father.

“If you wanted a rest, you had only to ask,” said Bolli, who rode as he walked and as he lived, a step behind his cousin Kjartan. “He’d do anything for you.”

Gudrun looked after Kjartan speculatively. “Really?” she asked, and then answered herself: “No, I don’t think so.”

“Oh?” asked Bolli. “Name one thing Kjartan won’t do if you ask.”

“Anything you ask him not to,” said Gudrun, and Bolli was struck silent. They both watched Kjartan talk to his father for a while. When he gestured, his broad arms traced the familiar patterns of axe strokes.

“And you?” Gudrun asked. “What would you do for me?”

“Oh,” said Bolli, and, realizing he was staring at her, looked quickly back at Kjartan. “What one neighbor would do for another.”

Gudrun’s mouth was tight where Bolli couldn’t see it as Kjartan thundered back to them. “A woman could not ask for a better neighbor,” she said.

“Father’s calling a pause,” called Kjartan. “Will you show me your jewelry, Gudrun?”

“I will show you everything I have,” said Gudrun, and caught Kjartan with her voice as he turned to wheel his horse away. “Provided you can match me piece for piece.”

Kjartan’s brow furrowed. “That will take thought.”

“You have until we stop,” said Gudrun. “Think well; I won’t show you anything until you have paid me.”

The boys pulled away from her to consult each other in private, and Gudrun watched them go, how the light fell first on Kjartan and then on Bolli, who would never mind being Kjartan’s shadow, and how they were each more beautiful than anything that could have sprung from Laxardal’s soil; yet here they were.

When they stopped, Bolli came back first to spread his cloak on the cold lava for her to sit on; the earth was damp enough it might soak through that fabric, but it would not dirty her nice clothes. She ignored it until Kjartan finished looking over his equipment and came back to her, his face was glowing bright enough to make Gudrun’s heart wrench.

“My armor,” he said, pulling it from its carefully folded place in his saddlebag. “Good, solid leather, a bane to foe’s forays.”

“Well?” said Gudrun. “Put it on.”

“On?” asked Kjartan, but he had already allowed her to dictate the rules of this game, and he was proud of his armor and quick to show it off. He pulled it on over his traveling clothes and stood before her looking every inch the rising-star warrior he was, and more than that.

“My headdress, as promised,” said Gudrun, and drew it from the box. She let Kjartan see it before she tied it deftly around her head; it was a hood of fine scarlet silk and set light to her eyes and stopped the sharp breeze that ran unfettered across the plains and tied elf knots in her long hair.

“It’s lovely,” said Bolli.

“You look married,” laughed Kjartan.

“This is just a girl’s headdress,” Gudrun warned. “I’ll have a nicer one when I’m married.”

“You still look married. And old,” said Kjartan.

“Well, show me something else and I’ll show you something,” Gudrun snapped. Kjartan nodded and drew his axe from its sheath. Gudrun crossed her arms. “Is that all?”

“What do you mean ‘is that all’?” Kjartan demanded. “It’s a beautiful axe, the finest craftsmanship! Father got it for me particularly!”

“Father, Father,” Gudrun said. “You haven’t anything of your own, really. But I meant show me the use of it, fool.”

“The use of it? You know how an axe works. And you didn’t show me the use of your headdress.”

“Don’t think I won’t pay what is due,” Gudrun said, but Kjartan still hesitated. Gudrun stood, her arms still crossed, and for a moment they just glared at each other.

“Fine,” Kjartan huffed, and sent the axe whistling through the air for a few passes, his body following and countering it, flowing neatly through the positions he was so well accustomed to. “Happy?” he asked Gudrun.

“Lovely,” Gudrun said, and showed him the silver bracelet she was putting on. He admired its fine carving, mostly honestly, partly to upbraid her for not admiring his axe. He was brought up short when Gudrun reached forward to grasp some imaginary goblet and offered it to the air to her right, her sleeve slipping up as she did so that the light caught on the bracelet and drew the eye to the smooth line of skin. Kjartan stared, wondering when Gudrun’s forearms had become such a work of art, and Gudrun looked back at him and smirked, and lowered her arm.

“That,” said Kjartan, “was lovely,” and earned himself his first real smile of the day. He turned hurriedly back to his horse. “I’ve got, look, I’ve got - my shield, see?  I carved it myself.”

“I can see that,” said Gudrun.

“What does that mean?” Kjartan asked suspiciously.

“There’s nothing wrong,” Bolli said. “You’re best at everything, she means -“

“Bolli,” said Gudrun to Kjartan, “has no part in this exchange.”

“But -“

Gudrun held firm. Bolli looked between her and Kjartan. Kjartan almost hedged, but then he shrugged and gave Bolli a look that said she was right; she had never agreed to show Bolli anything.

“What a good neighbor,” Bolli said, and turned on his heel, spraying dirt and gravel in his wake. He heard Kjartan ask, as he left, what he had meant; but he asked Gudrun. He had always asked Bolli those things before, and Bolli had no answer for him; but of course Gudrun would. He could see that in the way she bent over her jewelry box to draw out the next treasure, pausing before she did to make sure Bolli was too far away to see what it was, much less hear what they might be saying to each other; but it was unmistakable the way she turned to Kjartan next, moved her hand closer to his, and the way Kjartan laughed, loud and admiring and honest as Kjartan ever was. He did not know whether Kjartan’s rejection or Gudrun’s pettiness bothered him more, but the ache he felt was not as dull and broad as that of resentment, and it curved the other way.

He could see how Kjartan admired each turn of metal and flirt of gesture that Gudrun presented him with, and how Gudrun warmed and opened under his praise until she spoke to him as he showed her how he played with weaponry, and she must have said something wonderful because Kjartan laughed and seemed to grow before her. He never did that with anyone else, anyone who praised him freely. He never did that with Bolli.

He could see how it would happen, how Kjartan and Gudrun would turn ever more toward each other and away from him - dance together and expect him to find his own partner - how he would be an honored guest at their wedding. Cousin. Friend. But nothing closer. He was drowning in the despair of it when Kjartan broke away from Gudrun to come to him.

“Bolli, my brother,” said Kjartan, and he never called Bolli brother unless it was important, “Gudrun says you may join us - she has one more thing to show us. Come, you have to see, she has the most astonishing skills.”

“I’ll see,” said Bolli, and Kjartan threw an arm around him and hugged him tight enough for the edges of his armor to make an indent in Bolli’s skin. Bolli shoved him away, and Kjartan only laughed and ruffled Bolli’s hair loose of his braid, which he was always doing and which he would never be able to do unless Bolli let him, which Kjartan knew.

“You think too much,” said Kjartan. “It makes you sad. Be - still. In motion.”

“Leave poetry to the skalds, Kjartan,” Bolli groaned, and Kjartan laughed, just for him.

“See, Gudrun, I’ve brought him,” he said a moment later. “What was it you wanted to show us?”

Gudrun turned and looked over her shoulder at them from where she was putting her jewelry back in its box, her look full of smolder and longing, a look that made Bolli miss his step and stumble. A moment later Gudrun was laughing at the both of them, for Kjartan had stumbled too, and he was laughing with her, delighted in her skill.

“Gudrun, you are the finest and most graceful woman I have ever met,” Kjartan said, still laughing. “Your skill cannot be questioned.”

“And you are the finest warrior in all of Iceland,” said Gudrun. “Everyone knows that.”

They watched each other for a long moment before Bolli coughed to remind them of his presence. Gudrun turned to him and smiled, only the corners of her mouth turning up as her fingers brushed Kjartan’s at her side, and said, “And Bolli is second only to his cousin, we all know that as well.”

“If I’m second to you, I’ll never be sorry,” Bolli swore; but he did not know which of them to look at, and Gudrun’s eyes were far away.

 


End file.
